Featuring stories from Charlotte Bailey, Hanif Abdurraqib, Taylar Dawn Stagnar, Patrick Madden, and Kevin Chroust.
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Up, Up, and Away to the Week’s Top 5
“Wallace was a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants sort. A 54-year-old Massachusetts lawyer and real estate developer, he couldn’t afford to fly conservatively. Gas ballooning, similar to jockeyship, favored lightweight pilots, who could stock their baskets with more sand. Compared with his slighter opponents, Wallace’s six-foot-five, 240-pound frame meant that the equivalent of three additional 30-pound bags of sand […]
The Longreads Questionnaire, Featuring Aymann Ismail
The Slate writer and Becoming Baba author reflects on Newark and mosques as home, making sense of Egypt on long flights, and becoming a father.
Searching for a Lost Odessa — and a Deaf Childhood
“When I turn the hearing aids on in these streets, my parents are dead again. So, I turn them off.”
Manhattan Burning
Before the Jan. 6 insurrection, there was the Nov. 25 arson campaign, when violent anti-government conspirators sowed chaos in the heart of New York City.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we have stories from Amelia Tait, Dan Zak, Daniel Kolitz, Geoffrey Mak, Danielle Carr, Leon Dische Becker, Amber A’Lee Frost, P.E. Moskowitz, Joshua Tempelhof, Elenda Comay del Junco, Kendall Waldman, Devon Fredericksen, and J.D. Daniels.
Food, Shared Humanity, and the Week’s Top 5
“Once weekly fare, I now have cholent only a few times a year; I, too, am no longer observant. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Which is to say that, while I stand by the choices I’ve made and the life I am choosing to live—different from how I was raised, but no less […]
Mulling Desire, Honoring Murdered Women, and Our Top 5
I had no idea that the hot, tingly pain of blood returning to a frozen extremity is called the screaming barfies, until I read “What Is a Body For?” by Diana Saverin.
Rod McKuen Was the Bestselling Poet in American History. What Happened?
“He sold 60 million books and 100 million records. Why was he forgotten?”
A Year in Reading and Our Top 5
“Some of my favorite stories this year have made me more open to new outlooks and solutions for restoring and supporting the earth. They challenge me to pay more attention to the natural world, and to remember that we’re all connected, even to the tiniest and simplest forms of life.” “One observation on its own […]


